- Posted at 1:55 pm on Mon, Apr 2, 2012
We usually picture a "traditional" classroom as a one-to-one dialogue between teacher at the front and students sitting in rows paying attention, ready to answer questions. In the MYP, we often change the model to have students sitting in groups working collaboratively with each other, with the teacher there to act as a guide. But sometimes small-group collaboration can be messy and noisy. A parent or another teacher might walk in and wonder what kind of learning is going on here? Why are there so many students talking at once? Is the teacher in control? What is everyone doing?
Which is the better example of effective learning?
During this professional growth month, I've gone into many classrooms to see what kinds of interactions are taking place. I've seen the whole spectrum from “traditional” to “messy”. One Friday afternoon with a notably active bunch of students, I had a colleague come in to my class and observe a rowdy debate among 14 students. At first I was concerned about my perceived lack of control, but the feedback I got from both my colleague and students was actually quite positive. Even though they were constantly trying to interrupt each other and words were flying everywhere, the students were eagerly focused on the debate topic for over half an hour.
I think we all know there's definitely a time for more “traditional” teacher-student interaction, and also time for the messy, noisy collaborative student-student interactions as well. We just need to know when to let go and let things get messy. I think if the teacher frames the lesson with an engaging topic or question for the students to grab on to, we have no choice but to let them run away with it.
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